Until the 1500s nobody in Asia had ever tasted a chilli. The pepper that announces itself at the back of a Sichuan má-là, the green fire of a Thai naam-prik, the slow throb of a Goan vindaloo — none of it existed.
What we now call «Asian heat» is, in food-historical terms, a recent import. The capsicum genus is American — domesticated in Mexico and the Andes thousands of years ago — and arrived in the Indian Ocean basin in the late 1500s, carried by Portuguese ships. Within a century chilli had walked from Goa across the subcontinent, into Sichuan via the back-and-forth of the Silk Road, down through Yunnan into the rice-noodle kitchens of Southeast Asia, and east to the volcanic islands of Indonesia. By 1700 there is no major Asian cuisine that does not assume the presence of capsicum.
Seven that matter
Chilli identification is a regional art. What follows is a brief field-guide to the seven varieties that recur most often in this collection's recipes.
Bird's-eye, Thai prik kee noo. Small, slim, ferocious. Used green in salads and pounded into laab, used red in nam pla prik. Heat is direct and front-of-mouth; flavour is grassy. Substitute serrano, but expect to use twice as much.
Sichuan facing-heaven, èr jīng tiáo. The chilli that turns black bean stir-fries that mahogany colour. Mild by Sichuan standards — much of the burn in má-là cooking comes from the Sichuan peppercorn (huā jiāo), which is botanically unrelated to capsicum and produces a different sensation: a tingle, a numbing, a buzzing on the lip. Pair facing-heaven chilli with huā jiāo for the proper effect.
Kashmiri. Short, deep red, gentle, prized for the colour it gives a curry rather than the heat. Used whole, ground, or steeped in oil. There is no real substitute, though paprika comes close.
Korean gochugaru. The flake (sometimes the powder) that gives kimchi its red glow. Slightly sweet, slightly smoky, low-medium heat. Made from sun-dried daepyae chillies. Substitution is hard; if you must, use a 70/30 mix of mild paprika and cayenne.
Indian Bhut Jolokia, ghost. Among the world's hottest. Used very sparingly in northeastern Indian and Bangladeshi pickles and chutneys. A speck is all that any recipe will ever ask of you.
Indonesian cabe rawit. The bird's-eye's slightly sweeter cousin. Pounded into sambal terasi, eaten whole with gado-gado. Often incorporated raw rather than cooked, which keeps the flavour high and bright.
Sri Lankan and South Indian dried red. Tempered in oil at the start of a curry, popped until they turn black, then either left in or removed. Their job is to perfume the oil rather than to scorch the dish.
How to think about substitution
The single most useful idea here is that chillies have flavour, not just heat. Asking «how spicy is this» is the wrong question; the right one is «what does this chilli taste like, and what is it doing in this dish». A Sichuan stir-fry that has lost its facing-heaven chilli for cayenne will taste of cayenne — sharper, simpler, brighter. The original character is gone. Heat in Asian cooking is a vehicle for flavour, not the flavour itself 1.
Notes
- An exception worth naming: in some Sichuan dishes the burn IS the point — the cuisine has a doctrine of ‹huá là› (slippery heat) that aims for sensation more than savour. But this is a small subset of the cuisine. ↩
